The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

Goodreads Synopsis:

Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power:

1) Woo the Shadow King.
2) Marry him.
3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself.

No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King’s power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she’s going to do everything within her power to get it.

But Alessandra’s not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen?

My Review:

For the first time, I recorded some of my thoughts as I read The Shadows Between Us. I’m not including the recordings, but the basic ideas are here.

The positives: I am not a romance novel person but I could tell this one would be great, and it was! Alessandra was cunning, brutal, and unapologetic, which is something I love to but don’t often see. I despise love triangles and I didn’t even know there was one in this book, but I actually engaged with this one. For a while I could not choose between Kallias and Leandros and it really got me excited to see how Alessandra would.

A lot of times, I see that young adult romances really aren’t evenly matched. Personalities clash or things seemed forced, but certainly not in The Shadows Between Us. Levenseller really created a relatively healthy relationship and both of the love interests seemed to be good for Alessandra.

Now for the negatives. I really did love reading this, but there were a couple of things I couldn’t bring myself to look away from. First of all (MILD SPOILER BUT NOT BAD), when Alessandra asks how Kallias got his power, he says that his ancestor prayed to the gods in a moment of weakness and when that didn’t work he prayed to the devils, and the devil of pain gave him the power. This is all well and good, but I don’t remember any other mention of the gods and as far as I know, no one in their entire world has any magical powers besides Kallias, whether they be the same or vastly different.

Secondly, the Hektor plot line. On the very first page, Alessandra says that she killed Hektor, the first boy to break her heart. As the book progresses, people are starting to look into Hektor’s disappearance/death. This definitely added a time-sensitive element which was nicely done, and I appreciated that the hook from page one was still relevant hundreds of pages later. However, the Hektor plot line really had a dissatisfying ending. I was expecting something much different, and while the actual ending to that issue seemed relatively natural, I felt like it could’ve been done better because all that the reaction proved was something proved a thousand times already.

Besides the issues mentioned, I loved and enjoyed this book so much! I would recommend this to people who like unapologetic Slytherin characters (given that I’m a Slytherin myself, I really do), doomed romances, and a dark aspect to romance in fantasy. This reminded me of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin a little bit, which is another romance novel I love with some of the same tropes. I would definitely consider The Shadows Between Us to be worth the read!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan

Goodreads Synopsis:

Darkness never works alone…

Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who–and what–he’s become. 

As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. They’re pieces on a board, being orchestrated by someone… or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet—those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

My Review:

This book was definitely… unpleasant. I was horrified by a large part of this, but it’s a horror novel. I knew that this was going to be more disturbing than Wicked Saints but I didn’t expect that much. While I did physically recoil from some of the excessive gore, I actually loved the book overall. In my opinion, the first half was a little confusing and worse than Wicked Saints but the second half really redeemed it and I am complete trash for Kacper now (lol as if I wasn’t before). The ending destroyed me, so please, maybe Blessed Monsters won’t be so cruel? Wishful thinking, but anyways…

I still have the same thoughts as before about recommendations. It’s like a really dark, confusing version of Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. The Something Dark & Holy trilogy is just so good yet so horrifying. Do not read it if you don’t like horror, but it’s just a really great dark fantasy with some romance that doesn’t completely dominate the entire plot but definitely influences it.

I would rate this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Kingsbane by Claire Legrand

Goodreads Synopsis:

In this sequel to the instant New York Timesbestseller Furyborn, two queens, separated by a thousand years, connected by secrets and lies, must continue their fight amid deadly plots and unthinkable betrayals that will test their strength—and their hearts.

Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien—but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.

Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity’s long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption—fear of becoming another Rielle—keeps Eliana’s power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted—by embracing her mother’s power, or rejecting it forever.

My Review:

I realize this is my second review today but I just finished my book club reread of Kingsbane. Just like with Furyborn, I gained a much better understanding of what happened in the book. The characters are so well-done and their growth is explained so eloquently that it’s impossible not to see the differences between Eliana and Rielle and how they’ve both changed from the beginning of Furyborn to now.

My main critique is the level of reading needed to understand what’s happening in the book. It is not at all a leisurely read, you have to be very committed to understand what’s happening, like learning a new game or sport. Every detail is important, but there’s so many that you really have to work to remain in the know. My reread really let me dig deeper and remember things I couldn’t before, which I’m grateful for, but I wouldn’t have done this if not for the book club, so the level of understanding needed was an issue for me.

Despite this, I really love Kingsbane so much. While I react to books a lot, even during my reread when I knew what happened, things I said included:

– (loudly) F*CK

– *unintelligible screeching noise*

– WHY?!

– NOOOOOO

and more. This is such a captivating story that I could never bring myself to leave alone. I thank Claire Legrand for a truly amazing experience and the Sourcebooks Fire team for organizing the book club and bringing me to reread what’s published of the series.

I would recommend this book to people who love dark fantasy. As I believe I mentioned in my review of Furyborn, I could definitely see similarities to The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert and something about it also gives me the same feeling as Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan (I’m starting the sequel tonight). Furyborn and Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas got me out of probably my biggest reading slump to the date, and I’m so grateful to have heard of these. The final book in the trilogy comes out October 13th, Lightbringer, and I can’t wait to see what Legrand does next.

I would rate this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Goodreads Synopsis:

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

My Review:

I had heard this book was amazing, but I wasn’t totally confident. I was so wrong. Just from the simple slices of life in the first parts of the book, each of the characters is firmly established. I loved that the characters seemed consistent, but not predictable. Their reactions and opinions were a great insight into their characters, especially Kell and Lila’s views on the token and how they progress as more comes to light.

I was iffy at the worldbuilding at first because so much seemed to be open to interpretation, but by the end most things were clear or soon to be clarified. The magic and alternate Londons really drew me in and I was really interested in the way that Kell said they were layered and the history of it all. V.E. Schwab really seemed to know well what she wanted her world to be and the execution was wonderful.

I would definitely recommend this book to people who like fantasy, but not necessarily the traditional type. I would say I’d die for Rhy or Lila but they seem to be in the line of fire a lot so I’d rather stay safe. I really loved a lot about this book and I’m dying to read the others and V.E. Schwab’s other books.

Overall, I would rate this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein

*This book was provided as an uncorrected bound manuscript by Wednesday Books in a WBReaderFest giveaway.

Goodreads Synopsis:

An exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi 

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts. 

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn’t revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret. Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him?

Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein’s debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

My Review:

I wish I could say that I was blown away despite my expectations of a book I would be unable to like, but I was exactly right and more. I definitely think there should be more unapologetic female characters in YA, but Gracie was over-the-top problematic. Right off the bat she’s heartbroken because as a 15-year-old, she just found out that her 30+ year-old biology teacher has a fiancée and she holds it against him for most of the book. She even mentions that some people might see it as a “thing” but she doesn’t believe it’s an issue. So immediately, I’m weirded out. A little later Gracie’s new friend Beth insists that Gracie should try to seduce the teacher anyways, which is extremely not okay.

In addition to this, Gracie is made out to be some stone-cold bitch that only warms the slightest bit around Wade, but really? She’s unlikeable even to the reader who can see inside her head! Wade was also too perfect; he made few mistakes and maybe one big one but overall he and Gracie weren’t evenly matched at all which put me off of both of them.

For me, this book was like when I was much younger and my parents would cook a meal I knew I didn’t like but still had hope for. I would then try it, but it wasn’t at all worth it and perhaps even worse than before. I wish I could be nicer about this but I do think honest reviews are important and I just found this book to be really off putting.

Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend this book. Both the characters and plot were just beyond me here. I couldn’t tolerate it and I almost DNF, but kept reading because there was a blackout.

Overall, I would rate this book…

⭐️/5.

Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Official Synopsis:

The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world…or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.

One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable–until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire’s heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world–and of each other.

My Review:

I reread this book for the Sourcebooks Fire read-a-long and I love it just as much as I did before. The worldbuilding is so rich and innovative, not a single crack in the building all of the individual facts create. While some questions are still posed, Claire Legrand has a clear grip on the reality of the world she created. The characters are multi-faceted and examined and tested from angle throughout the two books published so far in the Empirium trilogy.

I also loved being a part of the book club in general. There were a lot of great points brought up and a lot of things I hadn’t realized or paid attention to. I love the book with all of its rich layers just as much as before if not more after getting an even deeper look into the book than when I first read it over a year and a half ago.

I would recommend this book to people who like epic fantasy, LGBTQ+ characters, questionable morals, and a lot of powerful magic. It definitely has the same dark magic feeling as The Hazel Wood in my opinion. It also has incredible, unapologetic female characters and powerful friendships and complex romantic relationships. Everything in this series radiates strength.

I would rate this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

5 Books to Read Before Summer Ends

Summer isn’t my favorite season (I’m a big autumn person), but it does have a surreal feeling of adventure and whimsy (Usually. I don’t really know what that is this year). Today I’m going to list some really fun books that really capture that feeling regardless of what season they take place in or genre they depict. Note that these are not in any kind of order.

1. Shadow Frost by Coco Ma

Genre: Fantasy

Page Count: 400 pages

Short Summary: Shadow Frost is about the journey of Asterin, a gutsy princess instructed by her mother to use her powers and team to kill an indestructible demon destroying villages. Asterin and the rest of the gang are so much fun and I think a lot of people can relate to Asterin’s obsession with chocolate cake. Every character has many facets, but all have an amazing sense of humor and a love of adventure.

2. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Genre: Contemporary

Page Count: 359 pages

Short Summary: Anybody who’s read pretty much any non-fantasy review on this blog knows that I’m not a realistic fiction person. Aristotle and Dante was just so different. Most of the book takes place during summer, but it could really be any time of year and still have the same feeling. Something about the characters in this incredible book makes me so happy even when their stories are so bleak at times. This is truly a book that I’d recommend to anyone, but the impossibility of summer that it portrays makes it perfect in my eyes for exactly that.

3. All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace

Genre: Fantasy

Page Count: 373 pages

Short Summary: Princess Amora has very powerful and violent magic, some that only her family possesses. She must demonstrate her magic for all to see in order to claim her throne as High Animancer, but Amora is imprisoned after her demonstration goes awry. Amora realizes that things go on in her kingdom that she’s never known about and to fix her reputation and kingdom, she escapes with Bastian, a pirate looking for his own magic (I love Bastian more than anything.).

The Keel Haul crew is just incredible. They forge a powerful bond of friendship together and go through so much. This book had such daring characters that I couldn’t help but be wrapped up in the journey. My heart burns for the sequel…

4. The Fence Comics by C.S. Pacat (illustrated by Johanna the Mad)

Genre: Contemporary, Sports, Comic/Graphic Novel

Page Count: 121 pages per volume (four issues per volume)

Short Summary: The Fence comics are primarily about Nicholas Cox, the bastard son of Olympic fencing legend, Robert Coste. After losing spectacularly to rival fencer Seiji Katayama at a regional competition, both boys end up at Kings Row, the very private school that Robert Coste attended. I’ve only read two volumes so far, but the first three seem to cover the tryouts for the fencing team at Kings Row.

I despise sports and hadn’t read a graphic novel in years before these, but wow. Reading these just gave me a feeling of happiness and I could never hold back a smile. This really captures excitement, both at the competition elements and the lives of the main characters. Vol. 3 isn’t getting delivered to me for another few days but I have no doubt that I’ll be trying to reread and recapture that same feeling in these graphic novels until then.

5. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Page Count: 409 pages

Short Summary: This might be my favorite series but I’m terrible about summarizing it because it’s SO CHAOTIC. Blue Sargent is the only non-psychic in an entire family of clairvoyants. One night when taking down the names of the dead of the coming year, she sees one of the spirits, meaning that the boy, Gansey is either her true love or the person she kills. When Blue meets Gansey in real life, she sees that he’s one of the cocky students of Aglionby Academy, the private school for only the richest among the people of Henrietta. However, Gansey is different and he is on a quest to find the Welsh king Glendower along with friends Adam, the boy from the trailer park who detests the rich boys he goes to school around, Ronan, the stubborn and emotionally-stunted rebel, and Noah, the quiet, kind boy who prefers watching to listening.

This series really has the chaos, adventure, and in general the same vibes as summer. I love the humor and simultaneous understanding of the direness of all of the situations. The characters have so much depth (my favorite being Ronan) and it’s so hard to say what my favorite things about this book and the rest of the series are because there’s so much I love. All of the characters are so adventurous and whimsical, capturing summer really well.

There you go! Please excuse my incredibly crappy summaries, but read these books! They’re worth it any time of year, but this season in general is really perfect for it. Make sure to like this post and follow this blog for two reviews a week and more lists like this one!

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

Goodreads Synopsis:

No one believes in them. But soon no one will forget them.

It’s 1889. The city is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. Here, no one keeps tabs on dark truths better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. When the elite, ever-powerful Order of Babel coerces him to help them on a mission, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.

To hunt down the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin calls upon a band of unlikely experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian banished from his home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in arms if not blood.

Together, they will join Séverin as he explores the dark, glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the course of history–but only if they can stay alive.

My Review:

(Originally posted on another platform)

This book is amazing. The characters, plot, setting, and everything else was just developed so well. I love heist novels and this is easily one of my favorites in the category and overall. It was very similar to Six of Crows, which is one of my favorite books of all time. This story is one of great camaraderie and love. I read this book in a day and I was so wrapped up in it that I bought the book after I read a library copy. There is amazing world-building, likable characters, and an intricate heist with twists you never see coming.
Enrique and Hypnos were my favorite characters, but I loved everyone. Everyone had an interesting origin story and a reason for where they were now. I definitely saw the same dynamic as Six of Crows, which I loved. Séverin was like Kaz if he was less in denial about how emo he was. No one can convince me otherwise. Heist books are incredibly hard to execute, and it’s so impressive how well this was done. Everything happened for a reason and I can’t wait to see what the gang does next, especially because of that ending!
Essentially, I absolutely loved this book and wish there would be a million more. The Silvered Serpents is one of my most anticipated books of 2020. I would easily recommend this to any of my friends, and I have, MANY times. I can’t imagine not having read this book.

I would rate this book…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5.

Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson

Goodreads Synopsis:

Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than she was supposed to, forcing her to team up with an exiled prince to navigate an unfamiliar planet.

When Andra wakes up, she’s drowning.

Not only that, but she’s in a hot, dirty cave, it’s the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists–including her family and friends–are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra’s a deity. She knows she’s nothing special, but she’ll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth.

Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess’s glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he’s hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne–if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn’t actually have the power to save their dying planet, they’ll kill her.

With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she’s woken to?

My Review:

I wish I could’ve liked this book more. I really liked the idea of it and the plot itself. I felt like it went relatively quickly and I loved the idea that technology is magic to those who don’t understand. What really made me dislike this book was the worldbuilding. I really thought it was creative, just a little too much in one area.

Andra wakes up on another planet, so it’s feasible that they speak a different dialect of her language or with different slang. However, so many common words were replaced with words that bore little resemblance to the originals that it was hard to keep up. The book was fast-paced, but it took me longer to read because I kept stopping to try and figure out what a word meant. There was also a lot of new technology that Andra knew about but the reader didn’t, which was confusing.

I don’t think I’d recommend this book. If you do want to read it, it’s a sci-fi novel with a fantasy kind of feel. I felt like the characters and plot were great, but the worldbuilding was too confusing to enjoy.

Overall, I would give this book…

⭐️⭐️.75/5.

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